Turning Over a New Leaf
Thanks to some recent events in my personal life, I was thinking about the process of turning over a new leaf. It's difficult, sometimes, and always full of uncertainty, but what's the connection with writing, you ask? Well, it also had me thinking about my project of NaNoWriMo, which will be my first big foray outside of science fiction. I wonder, having written exclusively in one genre for a relatively long time, how easy is it for someone to suddenly change genres and take a shot at something else?
I find that most of the writers I talk to have relatively varied reading interests but, if they're genre fiction writers, for example, then that's all that they tend to write. Furthermore, if they happen to be writers of a specific subgenere, they generally stick to that in their writings. I'm not out to say that this is a bad thing, of course. If, based on people's reading tastes, we can assume that it's not an out-and-out contempt or dislike (or even indifference, for that matter) for other genres, what is it that keeps us writing one genre. Is it a subconscious thing? A level of comfort and familiarity?
I think that, perhaps, it is because we equate writing a certain genre with writing itself. For example, when I first started writing back at the end of middle school and beginning of high school, I was writing science fiction. At the time, there were two clearly defined areas of writing to my mind - 1) School writing such as essays, reading responses, and creative work that usually consisted of poems and some highly regimented form of the short story and 2) Pleasure writing, where I could do what I wanted however I wanted to do it. For me, this meant SF. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that SF has been closely equated with creativity for me. In fact, one of the reasons I didn't make an attempt at literary fiction earlier is because I thought it would hinder my creativity. After all, our world sets certain limits on the realm of possibility. I no longer agree with that idea and, as a result, made my decision to go with a LitFic story for next month's event.
Any other opinions? Or perhaps some outright disagreement?
I find that most of the writers I talk to have relatively varied reading interests but, if they're genre fiction writers, for example, then that's all that they tend to write. Furthermore, if they happen to be writers of a specific subgenere, they generally stick to that in their writings. I'm not out to say that this is a bad thing, of course. If, based on people's reading tastes, we can assume that it's not an out-and-out contempt or dislike (or even indifference, for that matter) for other genres, what is it that keeps us writing one genre. Is it a subconscious thing? A level of comfort and familiarity?
I think that, perhaps, it is because we equate writing a certain genre with writing itself. For example, when I first started writing back at the end of middle school and beginning of high school, I was writing science fiction. At the time, there were two clearly defined areas of writing to my mind - 1) School writing such as essays, reading responses, and creative work that usually consisted of poems and some highly regimented form of the short story and 2) Pleasure writing, where I could do what I wanted however I wanted to do it. For me, this meant SF. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that SF has been closely equated with creativity for me. In fact, one of the reasons I didn't make an attempt at literary fiction earlier is because I thought it would hinder my creativity. After all, our world sets certain limits on the realm of possibility. I no longer agree with that idea and, as a result, made my decision to go with a LitFic story for next month's event.
Any other opinions? Or perhaps some outright disagreement?
2 Comments:
So...here's what I find. I write for children (middle grade to teen). I've occassionally tried something 'adult' but I never seem to want to keep with it.
In the children genre though I write all sorts of stories...history, mystery, sci-fi/fantasy. So how does that count. Do I experiment with other genres?
I guess I think I do in someways, but I also don't. Writing for adults vs. children really is VERY different and despite trying I find it very hard to switch to adult. My mind doesn't think on the level of 'the adult' (for lack of a better way to express my thought).
I never seperated writing. Probably because I started so late. I just hated writing period until college. Maybe that's why I write what comes to mind which is never one specific genre. It might have to do with reading preferences too. I read a little bit of everything...
I find myself writing just about anything that comes to mind. I'm writing some non-fiction articles about my family and the Chinese restraunt that I work at. I'm writing Horror and Sci/Fi fiction, for the most part. I write reviews of DVD's and books. I just try to write ddown whatever I can think of, I started writing really late too, and I think that I have been forcing myself to write everything so that I won't get stuck in any kind of genre rut.
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